From Noah Sent Mon, Nov 30th 1998, 20:04
From Noah Sent Mon, Nov 30th 1998, 20:04
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 12:22:34 -0600 (CST) From: Noah <xxxxxxx@xxxxx.xx.xxx.xxx> To: IDM <xxx@xxxxxxxxx.xxx> Subject: review: Burning Rome "The Waiting Room" review: Burning Rome "The Waiting Room" With this album, expect diverse collages of often quite salient electronic sounds organized into distinct, structured pieces. Burning Rome is Mark Kolmar, who produces a very unique variety of contemplative listening music. Tweaked synths, manipulated and sometimes mangled samples, and the occasional melodic oasis are all combined into curiously shaped works on The Waiting Room. The detailed rhythmic patterns in many of the songs sometimes elicit the feeling of being in multiple environments at once. Further, the scope of the tracks on this album varies considerably, ranging from danceable IDM and breakbeat excursions to the more dark and edgey kind of experimental tracks destined for repeated home listening sessions. Recently, Burning Rome officially released a new album "Senseless," on Mindfield Records (www.msgp.com/mindfield/). That release will be reviewed here shortly. More information on past and current projects, including audio streams, is available at www.xnet.com/~mkolmar/BurningRome/sounds/ 1. Thin Blue Faces - A nice opener. Gated vibrating solo screaches, melodic creaks, and an overdriven bassdrum staples the aural tapestries together. Another sound suggests sequential abductions. Gives me that eerie Communion feeling. The drum fills move past you as if you were hanging out a car window. Has an almost funky hypnosis-inducing rhythm. 2. Pirate Ships - Begins and ends with a colorized dripping synthe wash. This one is filled with randomly positioned hi-hats. There is a rambunctious 55-gallon drum breakbeat section alternating with a more driving 4otF rhythm. As the rhythms oscillate, there are some surreal voice-like fragments embedded in the beat work. These components together give the track that mildly cinematic quality. 3. Tomorrow - This one sounds like being trapped inside a futuristic virtual arcade of Missile Command. Beats alternate left and right channels simultaneously. Incoming pixilated trails are superimposed onto a recurring compudellic melting voice. The theme is made up of retro- electro elements in the other layers. Punchy rhythms keep the track progression moving right along. 4. Urban Fertility Ceremony - A grinding anthem of certain indigenous industrial tribes. 5. Quiver - One of my favorites from the album. Starts out with a clanging almost clocklike phase. Or perhaps it's more like a musicbox. Ambiguous shapes pass overhead, and then the beats. Tiny high frequency bands of noise begin to echo, the bassdrum constantly morphing its texture. It's a set-up, in a later phase you find yourself right in the middle of an ingenious melodic design made up of a captivating synthe riff. 6. Razorspace - This track has tubular pulsedrone sounds and a low frequency bassline oscillation. Alternates between segments of experimentalist drum demonstrations and moments of sequenced metallic surfaces. Later, you are ambushed by a wave of flamenco-like synthe patterns. 7. Welcome to the Anthill - A bulging distortion gives the bassline a rounded, smooth quality. We pass through a more grungy section, and the whole picture is framed with drum+bass or broken jungled beats. Definitely one for the working class of the hill's caste system. 8. The Operator - (unreviewed wildtrack) . . . . . . ..... . . . . . .